


Nothing's gonna hurt you baby

by Hufflepuff_Donkey



Category: How to Get Away with Murder
Genre: 1x09, AU, Angst, Anxiety, M/M, Murder, Panic Attacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-22
Updated: 2017-07-22
Packaged: 2018-12-05 13:04:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11578644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hufflepuff_Donkey/pseuds/Hufflepuff_Donkey
Summary: AU where it isn't Wes who kills Sam but Connor. Connor and Oliver are okay before the murder. Connor has an anxiety disorder. He is totally not a self insert.





	Nothing's gonna hurt you baby

“He killed Lila and was gonna let Rebecca go down for it! It’s not -”

Connor heard a noise coming from the other room and turned around.

“Oh my God”, he heard Michaela cry out.

Sam wasn’t dead after all. He had grabbed Rebecca and was now sitting on her, trying to strangle her. Rebecca was gasping and desperately scratching Sam’s hands and arms to make him stop.

“Do something! DO SOMETHING!” Laurel screamed.

“Get him off her!” Michaela shouted to the others.

Connor couldn’t move. He could only watch as Rebecca’s eyes were slowly losing focus. He watched as Sam’s knuckles were turning white. He just watched.

And then, suddenly, his legs moved on their own. His hand grabbed the first heavy object they could find. He heard Michaela scream, and he heard Wes yell something at him - he couldn’t tell what it was. His mind was blurred. All of a sudden he felt a sharp pain in his arm, then the screaming stopped. He opened his eyes.

Rebecca wasn’t gagging anymore. Michaela was sobbing quietly. Laurel was looking at him, eyes wide open.

Connor looked down his arm. He was still holding the bloody trophy. Sam was lying on the floor. He wasn’t moving. A red puddle had started to form around his head.

“I… I…”

Wes took a step towards him.

“Connor… you killed him…”

“Oh my God, oh my God…”

“We have to call the police, we have to tell them…”

“Rebecca, are you alright ?”

Connor was feeling dizzy. He let go of the trophy. It hit the ground with a thud.

“I - I - I didn’t mean to…” he whispered.

He was shaking, his mouth was dry. He had just killed a man. And not any man, either. He’d killed his boss’s husband. It didn’t matter that Sam had tried to kill Rebecca, or that he’d probably killed Lila. The only thing that mattered now was that Connor had killed Sam Keating and that it was too late to go back.

The others were still talking to him, all at once. Connor didn’t hear anything they were saying. He was just staring into the distance, motionless, with that same look of fear on his face he’d had when Pax had jumped out of that window.

“Connor! Listen to me!” Laurel finally hissed, insistently enough that Connor woke up from his stupor and looked at her.

“I didn’t take my meds this morning…” he murmured.

Laurel frowned.

“I’m sorry, what?” she said.

Connor looked down, his eyes frantically moving around, looking for something to hold on to that wasn’t there.

“My meds, I forgot to take them, I need to, I - I”

“Connor”, Michaela sobbed, “you just killed professor Keating’s husband, you can’t seriously be thinking about some stupid medication right now -”

“Shut the hell up, Michaela!” Wes suddenly burst out. “Can’t you see he’s having some kind of panic attack? Connor, I’ll get you some water, you’ll take your meds and then we’ll take care of this.”

Michaela started sobbing again. Wes disappeared into the kitchen, carefully stepping over Sam’s lifeless body. Rebecca had sat down on the couch - she was very pale but looked like she was alright. Connor went through his pockets, nervously looking for the bottle with his anxiety meds.

“Why do you need to take those?” Laurel asked softly.

This whole situation was absurd, Connor thought. He had just killed Sam Keating in his wife’s house, during the night of the bonfire, and now he was having a panic attack and Wes was getting him a glass of water - if this weren’t real he’d have thought that this was a particularly badly written sitcom.

Connor’s whole body was still shaking. After what seemed hours to him, Wes returned with a glass of water and handed it to him. Connor opened the medication bottle he’d finally managed to unearth, grabbed a pill and swallowed it with a big gulp of water.

“I’ll be better in a few minutes”, he panted, closing his eyes and stepping back to lean on the wall.

“You’d better be”, Michaela muttered between two sobs. “You just killed Mr. Keating - this is your mess to clean up, Connor.”

“Leave him alone”, Wes replied. “Connor, when your panic attack is over we’ll need to do something about this, okay?”

Connor nodded.

“Connor”, Laurel whispered gently - obviously trying to hide her fear -, “you’ll be fine, okay? Breathe deeply and, I don’t know, calm down…”

“I’m trying to calm down, Laurel”, Connor hissed back between his teeth. He was sweating a lot now but the panic was starting to recede. “But guess what - I didn’t ask for an anxiety disorder and I certainly don’t ask for panic attacks every day. Alright? So now leave me alone, I’ll be fine. Give me a minute.”

Everyone went quiet. Connor did a short grounding exercise, focusing on things in his immediate surroundings. It didn’t work every time but tonight it seemed to do the trick, and soon he was calm enough again to deal with the situation properly. He ran a hand through his hair and breathed in sharply.

“Okay. I think it’s gone. We gotta do something, we need to -”

“We?” Michaela started laughing bitterly. “Hell no. You killed him, Connor, and that’s your problem. I’m getting out of here.”

She hectically grabbed her handbag and rushed towards the door to leave. Wes immediately went after her.

Connor couldn’t stop looking back down at Sam’s dead body. It was too late to go back now. Sam was gone. And Connor was the one who’d killed him. He was slowly starting to realise what he’d done. He barely heard Wes and Michaela arguing in the hall.

“ - okay, okay, I’m staying”, he eventually heard Michaela weep. She walked back into the living room.

“We need to leave”, Wes told everybody. “But first we need to get you cleaned up, Rebecca. Come on, the bathroom’s upstairs.”

Rebecca looked at him, but her eyes seemed glassy. Eventually she stood up and followed her boyfriend upstairs.

Connor pulled out his phone and started dialling Oliver’s number. He needed to hear his voice - he was used to Oliver putting his cold hands on his neck while he was having panic attacks, he was used to Oliver talking to him in a soft voice so that he’d feel safe again. And now he had killed someone, and while he still hadn’t fully realised what he’d done yet, he was too upset not to call his boyfriend. Obviously he couldn’t tell him about what had happened - but just hearing Oliver’s voice and smile through the phone would be enough for now.

“What the hell are you doing?!” Laurel said sharply.

“I’m calling Oliver, I just need to hear his voice. It’s fine”, Connor replied.

“No, it’s not”, Michaela said. She seemed to have regained her composure. “If you call him now, or anyone by the way, they’ll be able to track your phone back to the house and we’ll all be screwed.”

Connor hesitated for a second but then he put his phone back in his pocket.

“Alright, alright”, he sighed. He was still determined to call his boyfriend when no one would be looking.

An awkward silence fell into the room. All they could hear was the shower running upstairs.

“I can’t stop looking at him”, Michaela finally whispered.

No one replied. Connor was still leaning on the wall and looking at his feet. He was still feeling unwell.

Eventually Wes and Rebecca came back from the first floor. Rebecca’s face was clean again but she still had a few blood stains on her neck.

“Okay, let’s g-”

“Hey! Are you guys in there?” a voice suddenly shouted from outside the main door.

Everyone froze. Connor looked at Wes, who seemed to have implicitly taken charge of the situation.

“Who is that?” Rebecca whispered.

“Asher”, Wes replied in an equally low voice.

“I see your car in the driveway, Connor!” Asher shouted. “Open up the damn door!”

Connor felt his heart pounding in his chest. His car. He had completely forgotten about that. Obviously everybody who knew his car would know that he’d been here tonight. He was screwed. The others could get away with it - nothing proved that they’d been in the house. Their fingerprints were everywhere but there was nothing odd about that, they were here all the time working for Annalise. But Connor - his car was outside. And Asher had seen it. He could testify to seeing it and thus incriminate him.

Connor’s mind was racing again. He looked at the others, absurdly expecting them to make it go away. Every second that passed while they were in this house with Sam’s corpse could mean the end. They’d go to jail. Or maybe they’d blame it all on Connor and walk while he would be sent to death row. Even just thinking about that almost made him pass out.

“Okay - what is he doing here?” Laurel asked.

Before anyone could answer, Asher had moved to the window and started banging on it.

“Everyone, get down!”

Connor repressed the urge to laugh. This was a nightmare. If Asher saw them he’d go to jail. This situation was a total absurdity and yet, it was real. This was real. Connor realised he was now seriously dissociated and almost completely out of touch with reality - floating around as if he was wrapped in a cotton cloud, barely understanding what was happening anymore. He was only relying on his survival instinct by now. He let out a little giggle that startled Laurel.

“Connor…”, she said, silently urging him to be quiet and to get down.

Connor covered his mouth with his gloved hands and lied down on the floor. He could look into Sam’s dead eyes from where he was. It was terrifying.

“Are you bitches seriously trying to ignore me right now?!” they heard Asher yell. “Let me in. And you guys call me immature? I’m, like, the most grown-up, grown-up ever, compared to your dumb asses!”

The pounding hadn’t stopped.

“We should just let him in”, Laurel suggested. “If he’s been in the house he’ll… He’ll suddenly be a part of it, you know? The five of us have witnessed him here.”

“Then Daddy Millstone can help get us off”, Rebecca added. “We could get him to step in the blood. It’s not a bad idea.”

“Yeah”, Laurel said.

Connor was feeling sick. All he wanted was to get out of this place and go home to Oliver, who would take him in his arms and tell him that it was all gonna be okay.

“No!” Wes hissed. “He wasn’t part of this.”

Connor looked at Wes.

“Do you think that I wanted to be a part of this?”

“Wait”, Laurel suddenly whispered. “Listen…”

She carefully stood up and peeked out of the window.

“He’s gone”, she sighed in relief.

Connor realised he had stopped breathing, and got his lungs to start working again.

“We need an alibi”, Wes said.

“We can’t go to the bonfire, it’s too obvious”, Michaela replied. “We need to get separate alibis to be more believable.”

“What do we do with the body?”, Connor whispered.

“We leave it here”, Rebecca suggested.

“But he’s got your DNA on his hands, right?” Michaela said. “No, we have to destroy any evidence that might link his death to you, or us. And we need to wash the blood off of the trophy. Connor, take it and wash it in the kitchen sink - make sure you clean up with bleach afterwards, alright?”

Connor nodded. That’s all he was able to do as a reply. He got up, grabbed the trophy and went into the kitchen.

The harsh noise of the water hitting the bottom of the sink put him on edge as he tried to get the blood off of the statuette. It wasn’t coming off easily and he had to remind himself of the fact that he couldn’t use the sponge a few times.

After he was done he went back into the living room. Everyone was waiting for him. Connor put the trophy back on the shelf where it belonged.

“We need to move the body”, Wes said. “Let’s roll it up in the carpet and move it to the woods.”

“You want to walk across campus with a dead body?” Michaela asked. “That is insane.”

“We can use Connor’s car”, Rebecca suggested.

“Yes, let’s put a grown man’s body in my car and drive it around while the whole university is outside roaming the streets”, Connor replied. He was trying to get them to drop the idea of moving the body, so he could go home and try to forget everything.

“Connor’s right”, Laurel said. “We just need to wipe Rebecca’s DNA from Sam’s fingers and then we can leave him here. And break the door lock so that it’ll look like a robbery that’s gone wrong.”

Wes didn’t seem happy about that idea, but he nodded.

“Alright, let’s do that. And afterwards we all go meet a friend so they can testify that we were with them.”

Michaela went to the kitchen to get bleach and a towel, and started cleaning Sam’s hands. In the meantime, the others looked for any evidence they might have missed. After Michaela was done, they broke the lock on the main door, and left.

Connor got into his car, put his seatbelt on and drove away as fast as he could. He really needed to see Oliver now, to pretend this whole mess had never happened for the rest of the night, until he’d have to face it again in the morning. He felt numb.

He climbed up the stairs to the apartment he shared with his boyfriend.

“Connor!” Oliver said happily as Connor walked into the flat and closed the door behind him. “Where were you? I’ve been calling you for hours, I thought -”

“I need you to hold me”, Connor simply replied. He noticed only now how disheveled he looked. His hair was messy, his collar was crooked and he was sweating a lot.

“What?” Oliver asked, a bit baffled by his boyfriend’s demeanor.

“Don’t ask. I just need you to hold me, Ollie.”

Oliver didn’t say anything for a few seconds, but then he stepped towards Connor and lovingly put his arms around him. Connor closed his eyes and rested his head on Oliver’s shoulder.

And that’s when he started to cry.

At first it was a soft, quiet crying. But it quickly turned into desperate sobbing. He just let it all go. Everything that had happened, it was too much. He had to let it out. And he was grateful for Oliver, who just stood there, holding him, stroking the back of his head and gently whispering calming words into his ear.

After what seemed like an hour, Connor managed to calm down his sobs. He let go of his boyfriend and wiped his eyes, never meeting Oliver’s eyes.

“What happened?” Oliver reluctantly asked.

“I - I can’t talk about it”, Connor replied in a shaky voice. “I’ll be alright. Thank you.”

Oliver took Connor’s hand.

“You know I’m here for you, right?” he said.

“Yeah.” Connor sniffed. “Thank you so much.”

And that night, when they went to bed and switched off the lights, Connor had a vision of Sam’s dead stare before his eyes. He quickly pushed it away and cuddled up to Oliver. Trouble could wait until the morning.


End file.
